Op-Ed: A big reason the South goes red? Gerrymandering and voter suppression
In last week’s Washington Post, I wrote about the need for voter-ID laws in the wake of election controversies. In fact, voter-ID is not a new issue, but one whose importance has become more apparent of late.
The Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder will be known as “Reynolds” in honor of its author, now justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Court’s unanimous decision upheld the lower court’s ruling but remanded it for further proceedings.
There are many who argue that without a voter-ID law in place, the Shelby County decision is meaningless, but these people are wrong. The Rehnquist Court, after all, had a strong voter-ID case before it during the Bush administration. During that same period of time, the Court had also gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, another voter-related measure.
The real reason for this sudden interest in voter-ID laws is that they were used to disenfranchise Black voters in North Carolina in the state’s 2000 presidential primary. That particular disenfranchisement was intended to help keep white, conservative voters from the polls in North Carolina the same way that the Court used the Voting Rights Act to suppress the vote in Alabama in 2002.
The Supreme Court has not decided voter-ID laws since 1982, and as my column on this subject shows:
• North Carolina didn’t have a voter ID law.
• The voter ID case won’t go anywhere.
• The Republican-controlled legislature has already passed a similar statute.
• A voter-ID law is a loser with the Republican-dominated state legislature, which doesn’t want to take any chances.
• The Supreme Court, like the North Carolina legislature, has no interest in putting the issue before it.
• The court and Congress have no right to pass a new voter-ID law, since they already enacted the one that was challenged in the 2000 primary.
To make matters worse, in the 2006 election cycle, the national Republican Party has made it clear they will go to virtually any lengths to preserve the status quo and protect their party’s power. While there are many possible reasons for this, there is no doubt that the party’s goal is to ensure that the Electoral College will remain in place,